Tag: leave it

This past week, we had our last class at Canine Campus. Those six weeks really flew by! We all learned so much—us humans most of all. Pyrrha herself made great strides in confidence and I daresay she might even miss the madness of that room and all of those beautiful dogs.

(*Pardon the photo quality; I took my old point-and-shoot and the lighting was off the whole time. You can get the jist of what was going on, even with the blurry shapes, I think…)

For our last class, we practiced “leave it” amid distractions, which Guion and Pyrrha are attempting to demonstrate below. (Clearly, this is still a behavior in progress.)

And then I got to practice recall with her, also with distractions (an open jar of peanut butter, a person, and lots of dogs around the room).

This class gave us a great training foundation for us to build upon in the months and years to come. I think Pyrrha has made immense strides in confidence since we started this class, and I couldn’t be more pleased. With that added confidence, she also just seems like a happier dog. She seems to understand more of what’s expected of her around the house; she’s more eager and gregarious on walks; she even actively seeks out other dogs to meet. This is such a HUGE transformation since she came to us in May.

Safe Harbor Prison Dogs. I think programs like this one are just incredible. Safe Harbor sends 100 dogs from high-kill shelters to the inmates at Lansing Correctional Facility, where the inmates train and care for the dogs. What a wonderful idea for rehabilitation for man and dog. These photo portraits of the pairs are very moving. (Dog Milk)